Apple News & Updates : Two Guys And A Podcast

At WWDC, Apple unveiled many new iCloud features. One of those features is iCloud drive. Users will be able to store files on iCloud directly from the Finder with multiple layers of folders. They will also be able to store photos on iCloud. Hopefully, iPhoto and Aperture will integrate iCloud in their next updates.

When users start to store more files in iCloud, the demand for better storage payment options will rise. Apple already addressed these demands at WWDC as well with a new pricing model. The following chart compares the new iCloud pricing against the old iCloud, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. Also noted is how much one gets for free and the price per year for 20GB, 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, and 1TB.

As one can see, Apple has lowered their prices. The new iCloud pricing also blows past Dropbox’s and Box’s 100GB only option. Dropbox has been a major player on the iOS, but this could change with the new iCloud. While Microsoft’s OneDrive has 2GB more free space, the pricing plan will be twice the price of the new iCloud options. Google Drive is the only competitor that is comparable. With 15GB of free space and $24 for 100GB, Google still beats or matches iCloud in most areas. Apple has not released their 1TB option price, so we will have to wait and see how Apple compares to Google at the high end.

With this new pricing model and iCloud features, Apple will be putting a huge amount of pressure on the rest of the cloud storage industry. If Apple can add all of the features from Dropbox to iCloud drive, Dropbox will be a losing proposition if they don’t change their pricing. At WWDC, we saw many big feature updates for iCloud and a great new pricing model to help users make the switch to iCloud drive.

3 Comments

Robert
~ June 09, 2014 09:20

I heard photos would still be free when using iCloud's Photo Stream (limited to 1000?) but anything you put onto iCloud Drive would cost. My current 5GB for iCloud is taken up with email but I archive regularly to reduce the amount. I don't use it for documents but might start when I can select which ones to put there. I don't use iCloud for backup either, everything is local because it would take way too much time to back all my files up. I will stay away from Google because no matter how cheap they say their data storage costs are, you still need to deal with Google's shady operations, including scanning everything for content. I might try the 20GB allocation but only if Apple starts charging for Photo Stream content. If I really want to make use of this storage, I'll need to investigate upgrading my Comcast speed but I know that would cost me a big chuck, enough to buy a large RAID in a few months. :-)
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Clive Sinclair
~ June 18, 2014 10:26

I've used all of the current cloud services. I no longer use Dropbox or iCloud. Dropbox is too expensive and iCloud is only of any real use if an iOS/OSX user - which I'm not anymore.
Google Drive and OneDrive are the only true cross platform services and it boils down to cost vs who you trust the most. I did have 1Tb with Google but cancelled it and now use OneDrive.
After having their knuckles wrapped, Microsoft are a little more up from about how they 'interact' with customers data.
Google have left me with little or no trust on how they use your data and target paying customers with spam.
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Henry
~ June 30, 2014 02:26

Guys, check out the cloud storage Copy. I use both OneDrive and Copy currently, but Copy offers you more space for free. Both are good and both come with the desktop client to sync your files to their cloud servers.
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